An In Good Company podcast with Dr Jenn Gandhi, Mental Health and Wellbeing Manager at The Football Association
Supporting mental health in the workplace
In this episode we’ll look at how you can recognise burnout, what does it mean to have a psychologically safe workplace and what are the most important things for a leader to keep in mind to avoid being overwhelmed by physical, cognitive or emotional pressures at work?
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There aren't many people whose chosen career are attributed to the opening scenes of The Silence and the Lambs, synchronised swimming and a sense of adventure. If understanding more about THAT doesn’t want to make you tune in to this podcast with Dr Jenn Gandhi, then I don’t know what else to write. As Mental Health and Wellbeing Manager at The Football Association, Jenn brings us inspiration from her world, including the power of football, the size and the scope of the people it can reach and a collective responsibility to make positive change.
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What do you wish people better understood about mental health?
Honestly, that we've all got it, that the very fact that you are a human being with a brain and a mind and a head on your shoulders means that you have mental health.
What myth about mental health would you like to dispel?
I’d get rid of the thought that mental health means poor mental health. Mental health is one of the most fluid and dynamic of human states. It's on a continuum that fluctuates every single day. And it's important to talk about both ends of the spectrum, as well as everything in between. Another myth is around poor mental health and mental illness. The two things are very different. If you experience mental health it does not mean that you've got a mental illness. And likewise if you have a diagnosed mental illness, it does not mean that you're going to live your life experiencing poor mental health. If you're on the right support plan for you, you can achieve a thriving and normally functioning life.
Can you give one piece of advice for somebody to check in with their mental wellbeing?
Start with something as simple and quick as the mental health continuum - with crisis at one end, thriving at the other and balanced in the middle. Imagine unbalanced, unsettled, struggling, towards the left hand side, moving through balanced and satisfied to thriving and excelling at the right hand side. Start by taking a breath and tuning in to your physical, emotional, and cognitive self. Where are you on the continuum? And based on that, what do you need from yourself in this moment? What do you need from others? We can then (in terms of self learning and self-exploration) extend that to take yourself to a time when you felt at your best. What was going on for you in that time? What were your relationships like? What was your day to day like? How did you behave? Really start to learn about what takes you to one end of the continuum and what has to be in place to achieve a sense of balance? Take the time to learn and understand self, because we rarely do.
Website links
During the podcast Jenn mentioned:
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Head to our YouTube / Spotify channels to catch up on previous episodes, including…
034: What can leaders learn from the Olympics? with Sue Hunt, Director of Strategic Programmes from London 2012 Olympics
Coming up
036: Dr Kate Simpson, Director of the Systemcraft Institute
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